Malo everyone, back for more Wallisian today I recently had a chat with a Wallisian who explained me many things in faka'uvea :

Comparative - how to say "better"lelei : goode lelei ia age >> better

E lelei ia age te ma'uli i Palesi i te ma'uli ae i Niumea : life is better in Paris than in Nouméa(ma'uli : life ; Palesi : Paris, Niumea : Nouméa [capital of New Caledonia])This phrase is said by someones who has been living in Paris for a long time and compares the quality of living, the lifestyle of the city.

But if you were a tourist visiting Paris, you would say : "e si malie age te ma'uli i Palesi i te ma'uli ae i Niumea" or "e matalelei ia age te ma'uli i Palesi i te ma'uli ae i Niumea"

And talking about the cost of living, you would say : "e totogi lelei ia age te ma'uli i Palesi i te ma'uli i Niumea" (the cost of living is cheaper in Paris than in Noumea)totogi : to pay, to buytotogi lelei : cheap / totogi kovi : expensive

One of the most interesting features of Wallisian is that it does not have the verb to be nor to have. Therefore, it uses other grammatical constructions. Here is an in-depth explanation :

[flag=]wls[/flag] expressing to be in Wallisian [flag=]wls[/flag]

When the complement is an adjective, the construction is very simple : e au masiva : I am poore lahi te fale : the house is bigE au papalagi : I am a papalagi (European)E natou uvea : they are Wallisian

but it can become quite complex : Ne’e faigafua pe ne’e faigata’a tou ako o te faka’uvea ? : Was it difficult or easy for you to learn Wallisian ? (literally, "Was your learning of Wallisian easy or difficult ?")

When the complement is a noun, the construction is different : Ko Uvea ko te motu : Wallis (Uvea) is an island (motu).notice the repetition of the presentative "ko"Ko Uvea ko te motu matalelei : Wallis is a beautiful (matalelei) island (motu)ko te fafine aeni ko te fafine uvea : this woman is Wallisian (gloss would be "that's the woman there that's the woman wallisian").

Ko is used in many constructions, such as this one : Ne'e au felave'i mo Soane ko te tama uvea i te kolo ko Palesi : I met Soane (John), a Wallisian guy, in Paris.

Last case : locativeE au i Palesi : I am in Paris Ne'e i Falani ia Malia : Malia (Mary) was in FranceLike English, Wallisian has two locative prepositions : i : in ki : toe au alu ki Uvea : I go to Wallis. E au nofo i Falani : I live in France.Ne'e ke alu kifea ? Where did you go ? E ke nofo ifea ? Where do you live ?

1) using e i ai"e i ai" is similar to French "il y a", Portuguese "há" or German "es gibt" (therefore it's different from ko).

‘e i ai taku motoka : I have a car ("there is my car")taku : my ; motoka : car‘e i ai ‘onatou puaka : they have pigs (puaka)‘e i ai to ma'u kaume'a fakatahi : we have common friends (speaking of someone)kaume'a : friends, fakatahi : together

You can also express negation with this construction + mole : ‘e mole i ai haku motoka : I don't have a car (litt. "There is not my car")

‘e i ai is widely used in Wallisian. ‘e i ai te me’a kai faka’uvea mo te me’a kai fakapapalagi i te fale kai : "there is Wallisian food and French food in the restaurant", = they serve Wallisian and French food.me'a kai : foodfale kai : restaurant ("food house")(I tried to do the glossing but somehow it did not work)

It may look easy at first glance, but in fact it's difficult because you have to learn all the personal pronouns ! (and there's a ton in Wallisian, 67 precisely !)

2) Using koThere is another construction, mostly used for kinship/family links, whith ko :

Ko toku tehina e tahi : I have one brothertehina : brother [of the same gender than me] ; tahi : oneKo 'aku lelue e tolu : I have got three bicycles lelue : biclye ; tolu : three. 'aku is another 1st person personal pronoun.In this context, "e" is not the particle for present tense, but a numeral particle.

Let's work a bit on native content (after all this grammar, let's have some fun !)Here is a poster for the 2013 Pacific minigames that will take place in Wallis and Futuna this September.Written both in French and Wallisian, it's an invitation for all the young volunteers to gather on July 6th for a big event, and for those who haven't volunteered yet to join."deviens volontaire" (become a volunteer) is the slogan in French.

Here is the translation of the Wallisian sentences : "Fakatahi ate kau volontaires" : together to the volunteers (?) (= let's all go to the volunteer gathering)Notice the codeswitching, using the French word "volontaires" (I don't know if there's a Wallisian equivalent).

E faka'afe'i atu kotou fuli ne'e tohi o kotou higoa mo kotou fuli e fia kau ki te Volontaires o te faigao'i !"= [we] invite all [those] of you who have registered and all of you who would like to participate as a volunteer for the preparation [of the minigames]

The sentence structure is very interesting, let's break it down and do the glossing : "e faka'afe'i atu kotou fuli ne'e tohi o kotou higoa""We invite all those of you who have registered" to register is translated as "to write your name"[on the registration paper].

"mo kotou fuli e fia kau ki te Volontaires o te faigao'i""and all those of you who want to volunteer for the preparation"

Notice that in both cases the relative preposition isn't introduced by any preposition (nor any punctuation). However, the verb is always preceded by the verbal preposition (e, ne'e) that indicates present or past. Kau is another tricky word, since it has multiple meanings. As a name, it indicates an "alignment", or a great countable quantity (te kau Uvea : the Wallisian (people) ; te kau solia : (all the) soldiers, te kau papalagi : Europeans, etc.). However, here it's a verb that means "to join in, to participate in". As always, Polynesian words have various meanings depending of their grammatical function !

On the left, we can read "Polokalama", a translitteration of the French word "programme" Polokalama : programm- fakahinohino o te gaue a te volontaires : explanation of the work of the volunteers- fakahinohino o te atu Komisio fuli pea mo te'u gaue : explanation/presentation of the commission and of the works- tohi higoa ki te ako gaue : inscriptions for the training [that will be provided to the volunteers] (gloss : write name to the learn work)

fakahinohino : to teach, to explain (surprisingly, K. Rensch in his 1984 dictionary mentions it as archaïc !)gaue : work

Some words are not separated (ate, ote, ite, kite, etc.) but they are distinct words (a te, o te, ki te). This is very common in colloquial writing.

The last line announces the date of the event : "Moeaki Aho 6 o Sulio, mai te hola 8 ki te 11 uhu, i te Lycee o WF"= Saturday June, 6th from 8 AM to 11 AM at the Wallis and Futuna high school

Here as well there's some French words : Lycée (but here they removed the accent, Lycee). A Wallisian transliteration could be lise ; faka'uvea only has a general word for school, "fale ako" [house-learn]). WF means Wallis et Futuna, while the Wallisian version is "Uvea mo Futuna".Moeaki : Saturday ; literally, "the day before" (Sunday, of course !) (French "la veille").6 is "ono" in faka'uvea.

Let's see how Wallisian expresses time and date :

As always, sorry for the long post, but I'm sure some of you at Unilang find these explanations helpful so as to compare faka'uvea to other Polynesian languages Hoki toe piga pe i he tahi temi ! See you next time for more Wallisian

Malo eveyone !Learning languages should be fun I recently stumbled upon this website which has pretty good language related quizzes. I thought I'd make one for Wallisian (probably the first ever on the internet ).I've put only the most common and basic words.So here it is, try to guess as many Wallisian words as you can and have fun !

ego wrote:This is wonderful. Wallisian is so close to Tongan. Most words are similar; I can even understand the sentences. Thanks melski!

Thank you for your interest, Ego ! I think faka'uvea and fakatonga are 80% similar, and Wallisian borrowe extensively from Tongan during the Tongan invasion and occupation of Uvea.The relations between Uveans and Tongans were not always friendly. The oral tradition of Uvea relates the episode of the Lomipeau: to impress the Tongan prince, Wallisians built a big canoe (vaka) and brought it to Tonga. A song has been made out of this legend:

Btw, if I understand the video from Wallis TV correctly, the newscaster says that you speak English, French, Italian, and German, right? Wow. It's funny that she calls you (?) tama matapule! Matāpule is a lower rank chief title in Tonga

Thanks a lot Ego ! I'm so happy to see people interested in Wallisian I can't speak Tongan and it was a bit hard understanding what you wrote me, but I looked at the page "Tongan for beginners" and it really improved my understanding of Tongan !Yes, I am the "papalagi" (European) in the video of Wallis and Futuna TV. I speak five languages, but I can't speak German, Portuguese and Wallisian very well, I have to study a lot !Right now I'm studying at the university in France (I'm currently in my 4th year).In faka'uvea, "Matapule" translates to "chief" but also to "stranger" : "tama matapule" means "young stranger"

Malo te ma'uli mo te kataki kia kotou fuli !!!(Hello everyone !)I haven't updated this thread for a long time, since I was very busy with studies. I have now moved to Italy, but I'm still learning Wallisian via the internet, and using all the materials I have collected. Even with no native speaker to talk to , you can still learn a language with a computer and an internet connection. Amazing, isn't it ?

But fist of all, I'd like to share with you a major milestone I have reached two months ago : speaking with a Wallisian monolingual speaker !I met and old Wallisian grandmother who only speaks wallisian - and we managed to have a 30-minutes conversation together ! It was also an amazing moment of intercultural and inter-generation communication. While I was struggling to make complex phrases and keep the flow, she adapted her language as if she was talking to a child - very slow (mamalie), very easy (faigafua) to understand We used a book with many photographs of Wallis and Futuna (the excellent "Ko Uvea mo Futuna" by Photographer Jean François Marin), and she would point out the peoples, the trees, the houses, ... and say the word in Faka'uvea. What a better lesson can you have ? (you can see the photos on his website)

I have also been keeping in touch with my Wallisian friends over the internet, and I've recently contacted a wallisian teacher who sent me some of her faka'uvea lessons !

With all that, I think I've managed to maintain my level in wallisian and learned many other interesting aspects of the language, that I'll share in future posts. Stay tuned for more faka'uvea !

My father is half Samoan half Wallisian but he is the only one out of his 9 siblings that speak fluent Wallisian. He lived there for years when his good friend who was a priest asked him to stay there with him. When I was about 10years old we had a community of Wallisians visit here in New Zealand and my dad was the only one who could to talk them. I grew up thinking I was a full blooded samoan til they came so it was awesome finding out I was a part of a place that nobody really knew of.

If you'd like, you could ask me what you would like to know in Uvea and I could get my dad to help out. He loves speaking it and telling me stories of Uvea.

Juliana Sagaga wrote:My father is half Samoan half Wallisian but he is the only one out of his 9 siblings that speak fluent Wallisian. He lived there for years when his good friend who was a priest asked him to stay there with him. When I was about 10years old we had a community of Wallisians visit here in New Zealand and my dad was the only one who could to talk them. I grew up thinking I was a full blooded samoan til they came so it was awesome finding out I was a part of a place that nobody really knew of.

If you'd like, you could ask me what you would like to know in Uvea and I could get my dad to help out. He loves speaking it and telling me stories of Uvea.

Talofa and fa'afetai for your message ! fa'amalie atu, ou le iloa le gagana samoa (sorry, I don't speak Samoan and I hope I did not butchered your language !)It's nice to see there are also wallisian speakers in New Zealand If you have any story of Uvea I'd love to hear some !

Wiktionary is taking a lot of time, but the result is great ! So far, I have compiled more than 30 words in Wallisian and in other Polynesian languages.(see "fenua" for instance where I tried to include as many Polynesian languages as possible - and it's not finished !)

As for faka'uvea goes, linguist Claire Moyse-Faurie has recorded and put online a lot of tales and stories in Wallisian. All are provided with a French translation and glossing, alongside with the recording of the native speaker ! >>> Read and listen to stories and tales in Wallisian

(litt. "the speaking of several many languages is an help in the learning of the languages of the world").

Some interesting constructions : - the verb is rendered into a noun (te palalau, te ako) - this is mandatory in Wallisian. Note how tiny the difference between a verb and a noun is. As linguist Claire Moyse-Faurie says, the grammatical function of a word can only be inferred through context.

It's been a long time since I haven't updated this thread, and quite franky I haven't been able to maintain a regular pace in learning wallisian these past months.

However, I'm back for some Wallisian today Today I'd like to introduce directional particles : mai, atu, age, ifo, ake.Those are extremely important and shape almost evey Wallisian sentence. Mai and atu are very common among other Polynesian languages as well.

Malo pe mo si vaevae mai o te'u logo ki o tatou ki'i motu : = Thank you for sharing with us the news of our little island. (litt. Thank for the sharing to us of the news of our little island)>> here, mai is rendered with a plural in English.

As you can see, atu, mai and age do not always have a litteral translation in English. They are far more used than in Indoeureopean languages, because Polynesian languages always indicate the relationship between the speaker and other people.

Now let's make things even more complex (and thus interesting )A sentence like "Mole au faka'aga au tau mole tali mai" means"I do no criticize (faka'aga) your absence of answer" (litt. "I do not criticize your not responding to me") (I do not blame you for not answering me).